Coach comments with Larry Sheerer

Thursday

Nov 21, 2013 at 8:38 AMNov 21, 2013 at 8:38 AM

Jonesville Comet head coach Larry Sheerer took a timeout from the first week of practice and sat down with the Hillsdale Daily to give us a sneak peek on how the boys basketball team will look this season. HDN: How did the team do last year?Sheerer: We finished 10-11. We got off to a slow start but we finished strong.HDN: What are the keys to turning things around in 2013-14?Sheerer: The biggest thing is rebounding. We are fairly small. We have to do a good job on the boards and limit teams to one shot. That was one of our biggest problems last year.HDN: Which players will be gone this season? who will back?Sheerer: Brandon Jenkins and Wes Raker were two big contributors. They graduated. Jenkins leadership, we will miss that. Back is Kyler Gimenez. He was first team all-conference. We are looking for him to step up and do big things. Kyle Jones was an all-conference honorable mention. Aaron Cleveland, he’s back. He had some injuries that carried over from football. He looks healthy this year. Ben Ackerson and Caleb Taylor they were sophomores. They saw a lot of good playing time. Reed Baker is a senior. He had playing time last year also. Senior Tyler Bognar is another guard. I have a lot guardsHDN: Anyone new?Sheerer: We have some kids up from the JV. Derek Bearden moved up. We also have an exchange student from Germany. He’s a nice little player. He is going to help us without a doubt. At 6’3", he’s our biggest kid. He’s played a lot of basketball over in Germany.HDN: So what are the Comets doing in practice right now?Sheerer: Right now we are basically getting back into the day-to-day things. Learning new things and going with what we did last year. I have got a good group of kids that are real competitive. They are all competing for playing time. They are all going to make themselves better.HDN: Has the Comet football season helped get the basketball team get ready?Sheerer: Football shape is a whole lot different from basketball shape. There is a lot to do. I also had three soccer players. Out of 13, I have just three that didn’t play a fall sport. We are still doing a lot of running.HDN:What does your schedule look like this season?Sheerer: Of course we play the Hillsdale Hornets. They will be really good. Homer has just about everybody back. Concord is really good also. They have size which gives us trouble. The conference will be all-around tougher than last year. Non-league games will be hard; Napoleon, Adrian Madison, another real good team. They won 18 games and played Hillsdale in the district finals. A big core of their team is back. We play some pretty decent teams. We will really have to box out, because everyone of those teams has size on us.HDN: Is Hillsdale vs. Jonesville a basketball rivalry?Sheerer: Yeah. It is. They really put it to us the past couple years. For a while we did the same to them. It’s been back and forth. We have times when both teams were really good back in the 90’s. This is the fourth or five season of us playing again. It is always a very competitive game. Emotions run high. Last year both times we played them, they put a whooping on us. Our kids have to come ready to play. Hillsdale is good.HDN: How long have you coached at Jonesville?Sheerer: I have been around for a long time. I started in Jonesville in ’88. I have coached all different levels.HDN: What will be your teams' stronger suits?Sheerer: A lot of the same things as last year. We do have some quickness. We shoot the ball very well. We have several guys that can shoot the three-pointer. When you are smaller you better be able to. We finished real strong. This year we want to pick up where we left off.HDN: Will the early goings be smooth sailing or do you jump right into tough games?Sheerer: We start with North Adams, then Napoleon, and then Homer. Homer is definitely picked to be the top team in the Big Eight. Napoleon will be really good. We have pretty tough games in the first week and a half.HDN: Do you have a starting line up picked out?Sheerer: A lot of playing time and positions are up for grabs. I feel real comfortable playing 10 kids. I see a lot of kids getting minutes. Everyone has their own little niche, which is nice. It can help us.